DAH’s ninth poetry collection is SPHERICAL (Argotist Press), and his poems have been published by editors from the US, UK, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Canada, Spain, Poland, Philippines, Singapore, Australia, Africa, Japan and India. He is a multiple Pushcart nominee, Best Of The Net nominee, and the founding editor for the poetry critique group, The Lounge. DAH lives in Berkeley, California where he is working on the manuscript for his tenth poetry collection, and his poems have recently appeared in Poetry Now!, Straylight Magazine, Otoliths, The Cape Rock, Acumen Journal, Sandy River Review, Indian River Review, Junto Magazine, Mad Swirl Magazine, New Mexico Review, Setu Journal, and Fishbowl Press. DAH is also working on his first collection of short fiction.

fragmented no. 33

 rotting corpses that breed
 painful sighs
 dry eyes not blinking
 a world of strangers
 a place for loneliness
 minds without memories 
 death is a creature
 laughter mocking itself
 distress is moaning
 a retarded sound
 there’s nothing left over
 dejection is happening
 the crowd is trembling 
 a hole in the air
 strangling the brain 
 contentment collapses 
 like dazzling darkness
 the sky in grave exile
 a world of anxiety 
 shackles of boredom 
 prisoners of fear
 breathing is cliché
 falling in weightlessness
 the emptiness of losing 
 fatigue is relentless 
 a lifetime of laboring 
 the cock’s cry 
 is nothing more than
 a shout to live  

fragmented no. 14

a slit in darkness 
 near some far distance 
 a light-streak 
 like a black sea’s island 
  
 my reflection’s lost breath
  
 i gather solstice nights 
 from old stories  
 with new dimensions 
 new revisions   
  
 how fast the differences   
  
 in a mirage of myself
 at the edge of life 
 another breath falters 
 without a ripple  
  
 I’ve been here before
  
 inside this idle self 
 empty of light , and you
 on the dark side
 as a far-off outline 
  
 your eyes in my reflection 
  
 how do i remember us
 stormy 
 sultry 
 jagged coast 
  
 no lighthouse insight   

fragmented no. 17

1 .
  
 another part of  this cage  
 i move from
 wall to wall
 \ this habit
 of days to nights   
  
 first there’s nothing  
 then everything \ i’m leery
 of modern worlds 
 first there’s too little
 then too much   
  
 a rush of clutter  
 this , my sleep \ lazy dreams 
 i cannot nurse 
 i’m leery  
 of modern worlds 
  
  
 2 . 
  
 slabs of granite walls 
 erected \ like teeth
 biting her torso  
 , venice \ arches 
 from spine to spine 
  
 and your body opened  
 lulled by water
 chimes from towers  
 \ in the darkness 
 i unbuttoned you  
  
 in full view  
 my heart’s dizzy circles  
 running 
 out of breath  
 \ oh , this weightlessness